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PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1888. 



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PHIIiADELPHIA: 

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ATHENS. 



Athens, the capital of Attica, the metropolis of an- 
cient Greek culture, takes its name, probably, from 
Athena (q.v.), 'goddess of science,. arts, and arms,' who 
from earliest times was the patron divinity of the city. 
Cecropia, from the mythical king and hero Cecrops, the 
city was also called in ancient times. 

Athens owes its original location, doubtles.s, to the 
craggy rock known as the Acropolis (q.v.), that rises 
more than 500 feet high above the Attic plain, and that 
in earliest days served for citadel as well as for residence 
and site of sanctuaries. With the gi'owth of the popu- 
lation, the parts below and adjacent to the Acropolis, 
especially on the western and southern slopes, became 
inhabited. 

Prior, however, to this earliest period in the history 
of Athens as a Gh-eek city, it is held by many that there 
was a settlement of Phoenicians on the slopes of the 
hills towards the sea, numerous remains of which, in 
the form of cellars, cisterns, graves, steps, seats, all cut 
into the native rock, are still to be seen, constituting 
what is generally known as 'The Rock City.' That the 
Phoenicians visited these coasts for commerce in the 13th 
century before our era, that they were the teachers of 
the Greeks in various arts, and that they introduced 
into Attica the cultivation of the olive-tree, so well 



4 ATHENS. 

suited to the dry and chalky soil of this land, are gen- 
erally accepted facts. 

To understand the subsequent history and growth of 
Athens, it is necessary first to take into view the natural 
advantages of its position. Few cities, if any, can boast 
a more beautiful situation. 

The Attic plain, which immediately surrounds the 
city on the east, north, and west, is bounded by the 
range of Hymettus (3368 feet), famous for its purple 
tints, on the east; by Pentelicus (3641 feet), noted for 
its quarries of marble, rich even to-day, on the north- 
east ; by the range of Parnes (4634 feet), well wooded 
at the base, but barren at the summit, on the north ; by 
the lower and nearer range of Corydallus (1535 feet), 
extending to the bay of Salamis, on the north-west; 
and on the west and south by the Saronic Gulf, in whose 
waters lie, in plain sight, the islands of Salamis and 
^gina. The site of the city is itself diversified by 
several hills which add greatly to the beauty of the 
scenery. 

Standing upon the Acropolis one sees to the east 
Mount Lycabettus, a conical-shaped mount 911 feet 
high, on whose summit Zeus once had a sanctuary where 
now stands a small chapel dedicated to St. George, the 
patron saint of the modern Greeks. To the south- 
west rises the hill of the Muses, or the Mouseion, sur- 
mounted now by the ruins of a monument, to Philopap- 
pus, who was Roman consul about 100 B.C. In the 
side of the Mouseion are three rocky chambers, doubtless 
ancient sepulchres, but popularly known as the ' Prison 
of Socrates,' according to a tradition that goes no farther 
back than the middle ages. Immediately adjacent to 



ATHENS. 5 

this is a lower eminence called the hill of the Pnyx, 
from the fact that on its slope tradition locates the i)lace 
of popular assembly. At the upper end of the terrace, 
which is supported below by a wall of polygonal masonry, 
stands a cube of rock surrounded at the base by steps. 
This has long been supposed to be the ancient bema or 
tribune of the assembly — an opinion not held by many 
recent scholars, who take it to be a great rock altar, 
probably dedicated to the worship of the ' Highest 
Zeus,' to whom many votive tablets have been found in 
the neighbourhood. 

Just below the western foot of the Acropolis lies the 
rocky hill called the Areopagus or hill of Ares (Mars), 
so named from the myth according to which Ares was 
tried for the murder of Hallirothios. before the twelve 
gods of Olympus, who held court on this .eminence. It 
was here that the most venerable court of Athens had 
its sittings to try cases of wilful murder, to exercise 
judicial censorship over the life of the citizens, and to 
guard the sanctity of ancient law and tradition, particu- 
larly such as pertained to religion. Before this court, 
or at least on this hill, the apostle Paul delivered his 
well-known vindication of the Christian faith recorded 
in Acts, xvii. Just beyond the Areopagus, with a nar- 
row valley between, lies the Hill of the Nymphs, once 
occupied by sanctuaries and dwellings, and now the site 
of the astronomical observatory. The view beyond in- 
cludes the harbours of Phalerum, Munychia, Zea, and 
the Piraeus (q.v.). The superior position and greater 
extent of the last-named harbour have made it, ever 
since the days of Themistocles, the seaport of Athens. 
To the south and east of the city flows the Ilissus, and 

1* 



ATHENS. 



to the north and west the less celebrated bnt more copi- 
ous Cephissus. In the summer both streams are nearly 
dry, and at no time are they large enough to deserve the 
name of river. They are of great value, however, in 
the winter and spring for irrigating the vineyards and 
olive-groves that cover the plain. The most famous 
spot in the plain is the grove of the hero Academus, 




Plan of Ancient Athens : 

I. Parthenon, \ 

II. Ereciitheuin, I 

III. Propyljea, V Acropolis. 

IV. Temple of Athena Promachus, 
v. Temple of Athena Ergane, J 

VI. Prytaneum. 

VII. Choragic Monnment of Lysicrates. 

VIII. Theatre of Dionysus. 

IX. Odeum of Herod. 

X. Stoa Poecile. 

XI. Sanctuary of ^Esculapius. 

XII. Circuit of the walls before the Persian war. 

situated about a mile north-west of the city, where the 
' divine Plato' taught his philosophy and founded his 
school, which has become famous under the name of the 
Academy (q.v.). Adjoining this grove is a knoll called 
Colonus, in the ancient demos of that name, famous as 
the birthplace of the tragic poet Sophocles, who cele- 



ATHENS. 7 

brates the beauty of this reji::ion in one of the finest of 
the odes in his tragedy of OEdipus at Colonua. On this 
hillock are the tombs of two of the most distinguished 
of modern archaeologists, Ottfried Muller and Charles 
Lenormant. 

That a city so beautifully situated, enjoying a delight- 
ful climate the greater part of the year, under a sky 
wonderful for its clearness (as Euripides says of the 
Athenians of old, ' marching through an ether of sur- 
passing brightness'), inhabited by a race so gifted as 
were the ancient Ionian Greeks, should play an impor- 
tant role in history, is not at all surprising. The history 
of the city may be most conveniently narrated by di- 
viding it into four epochs : (1) The period from the time 
of Cecrops to the battle of Platsea, 479 B.C. (2) The 
most flourishing period of Athens, extending to the close 
of the Peloponnesiau war, 403 B.C. (3) The decline of 
Athens, embracing the Alexandrian, Roman, Byzantine, 
Frankish, and Ottoman periods. (4) Modern Athens. 

(1) The oldest history of Athens as a city is connected 
with the reforms of Theseus and Solon. Theseus was a 
mythical hero to whom, as his name may indicate, was 
attributed the credit of organising the scattered popula- 
tion of Attica into communities and of instituting sev- 
eral of the most important Athenian festivals. At this 
time the Acropolis was the abode of the king and the 
priests, and was the site of the Prytaneum or town-hall, 
as well as of the sanctuaries and altars of Athena, 
Erechtheus, Zeus, and Poseidon. 

In the 6th century B.C., under the reforms of Solon 
and the fostering hand of the tyrant Pisistratus, Athens 
fairly began her prosperous career. Amid much that is 



8 ATHENS. 

mythical in the history of the reforms of Solon, it is 
certain that he gave a new place to the demos as the unit 
and centre of political life, and to the ecdesia or popular 
assembly, before which all acts of -government were to 
be brought for discussion and approval. By him also 
the populace was divided for political purposes on a 
property basis into four classes, of which the first three 
were eligible to office. At this time the chief rule was 
already lodged in the hands of nine archons who were 
chosen annually. To the family of Pisistratus Athens 
owes the earliest structures that were at all beautiful or 
imposing. On the Acropolis Pisistratus erected a tem- 
ple in honour of Athena, which was destroyed by the 
Persians, and some architectural remains of which are 
still seen built into the northern wall of the Acropolis. 
There are some who believe that the foundations of a 
large temple, recently exhumed between the Parthenon 
and the Erechtheura, are the ruins of this Pisistratean 
structure. Still more imposing was the temple begun 
by Pisistratus on the bank of the Ilissus in honour of 
Olympian Zeus, and ever since known as the Olympieura. 
Within a peribolus of four stadia a structure was reared 
whose dimensions afterward became 354 feet in length, 
171 in breadth, and which when completed was adorned 
with 120 columns of Pentelic marble, 60 feet in height 
and 6 feet in diameter. The ruins of this colossal tem- 
ple, consisting of 16 columns, most of which have an 
architrave, form one of the most impressive sights of 
Athens. 

The reforms of Clisthenes in 506 B.C. gave the gov- 
ernment of Athens a still more democratic form by 
making all citizens eligible to office, by enlarging the 



ATHENS. 9 

authority of the popular assembly, and by creating 
popular courts of justice. Doubtless these reforms 
stimulated the erection of new buildings for the use of 
the state, many of which were located about the ancient 
Agora, whose exact situation has been a matter of much 
dispute until this very day. The conflict with Persia 
which originated in the Ionic revolt and the destruction 
of Sardis in 499 B.C., indirectly led to the naval suprem- 
acy of Athens, under the wise guidance of Themistocles. 
In 480 B.C. the Athenians abandoned their city to the 
ruthless vengeance of the Persian invaders, who burnt 
and destroyed all its houses and temples. 

(2) After the victories of Salamis and Platsea, the 
Athenians splendidly rebuilt their city, which now 
entered upon the most brilliant epoch of its career. 
Under the leadership of Themistocles, Cimon, and 
Pericles, Athens reached the zenith of her power, and 
became fortified by numerous walls and bulwarks, and 
beautified by the erection of splendid temples. To this 
period belong the walls around the Acropolis, and the 
city walls with their ninety-seven towers and ten gates, 
measuring a circumference of forty-three stadia, or al- 
most five miles. The chief gate was at the north-west, 
and led to the Academy. It was called the Dipylon 
or double gate, and its form may still be seen from the 
foundations which have recently been brought to view 
by excavation. Just outside of this gate was the Cera- 
micus ('Potter's field') or ancient cemetery, where one 
sees to-day some of the most beautiful sepulchral reliefs 
known to art. For the better defence of the city and of 
its harbour, Piraeus, the famous 'long walls' were built 
by Pericles. Together with the fortifications of the 



10 ATHENS. 

Piraeus, which had previously been built by Themistocles, 
they formed a complete fortress, sometimes denominated, 
on account of its length, which was about five miles, the 
* Long Fortress.' The inclosure between the two paral- 
lel walls was for the larger part of the way about 550 
feet wide, and formed a continuous broad street between 
the city and its port. Traces of these walls are still to 
be seen. The age of Pericles in Athenian history cor- 
responds to the Elizabetiian period in the history of 
England. Among the great names of this illustrious 
period may be mentioned Mnesicles and Ictinus in archi- 




Map of the Country round Ancient Athens, 

tecture, Phidias and Myron in sculpture, -^schylus and 
So[)hocles in tragedy, Socrates and Plato in philosophy, 
Herodotus and Thucydides as historians, and Pindar and 
Simonides as lyrists. Of the monuments of architecture 
and sculpture belonging to this period the most important 
are the Parthenon (q.v.), the Erechtheum, the Temple of 
Wingless Victory {Nike Apteros), the Propylge, the The- 
seum, the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, and the 
statues and reliefs that adorned these structures. It is 



ATHENS. 



11 




12 ATHENS. 

from the contemplation of these ruins and remains that 
the beholder gains such a conception of the purity and 
exquisite grace of ancient art as he can get nowhere else. 
The simplest and most majestic structure of all is the 
Parthenon, built in the Doric style, and richly orna- 
mented with polychromatic colouring. Its cella con- 
tained the chryselephantine statue of the virgin goddess 
from the hand of Phidias. Its pediments were adorned 
with groups of statuary representing the birth of Athena, 
and the contest of Poseidon and Athena for the posses- 
sion of Attica. The frieze around its cella wall portrayed 
the procession of the Panathenaic festival. Of these 
sculptures the largest part of what has been preserved 
was carried by Lord Elgin to the British Museum, where 
the collection is known as 'the Elgin Marbles' (q.v.). 
The temple first became a ruin in 1687, through the 
bombardment of the Venetians, one of whose lieutenants 
had the wretched good luck to send a bomb into the 
powder stored by the Turks in the cella. Shattered and 
battered though it is, the Parthenon is perhaps the most 
beautiful ruin in the world. Of the Erechtheum, which 
was built in the Ionic style, and which has a form entirely 
different from that of any other known temple, the most 
beautiful part, the so-called ' Porch of th» Caryatides,' is 
still in fair state of preservation, and shows six graceful 
female figures supporting the architrave. The Propylsea, 
which formed the entrance to the Acropolis, consisted of 
three parts — viz. a central porch with five gates, and a 
north and south wing. It was the most massive secular 
structure of ancient Athens, but, probably through the 
distractions and expenditures of the Peloponnesian war, 
was never completed. Contiguous and in front of the 



ATHENS. 13 

south wing of tlie Propylsea is the Temple of Wingless 
Victory, built in the Ionic style and of Pentelic marble. 
On a slight elevation north-west of the Acropolis stands 
the so-called Theseum, the best preserved of all the struct- 
ures of the ancient city. It was built somewhat earlier 
than the Parthenon, is also of the Doric order, and 
derives its name from the tradition that here the remains 
of Theseus were brought from the island of Scyros and 
interred. Most modern scholars believe it was a temple 
of Heracles or of Hephaestus. In the middle ages it 
served as a Christian church dedicated to St. George. 
The gold-brown tint of the weather-stained Pentelic 
marble presents, in the glow of the rising or setting sun, 
a peculiarly beautiful effect. 

In an out-of-the-way corner, south-east from the 
Acropolis, amid squalid surroundings, stands the grace- 
ful Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. This monument 
owes its origin to the custom of dedicating the tripods 
given in the Dionysiac contests to the victorious chorus. 
It is in the form of a small circular temple, which served 
as the base of the tripod, and is one of the earliest spe- 
cimens of the Corinthian architecture. On the south 
slope of the Acropolis was the sanctuary of Dionysus, 
where later was built the great theatre, the remains of 
which, consisting of seats hewn into the rock, marble 
thrones, pieces of a later proscenium, and other archi- 
tectural fragments, still testify to the interest of the 
Athenians in the festivals of the god of the vine. 
Closely adjacent, on a higher terrace, lay the sanctuaries 
of ^sculapius, Themis, Aphrodite, and Demeter, of 
which little except the foundations remain. 

(3) In its most flourishing period, Athens contained 

-1 



14 A THENS. 

upwards of 10,000 dwellings, and numbered at least 
100,000 free inhabitants, and more than twice as many- 
slaves. The number of citizens who were entitled to 
vote and to hold office was about 20,000. The decline 
of Athenian power and prosperity dates from the close 
of the Peloponnesian war (403 B.C.), which had ex- 
hausted the resources of Athens and broken her spirit. 
Still, at this time there were not Avanting patriots and 
statesmen, such as Demosthenes and Lycurgus, who 
secured for Athens a new though brief ascendency 
among the states of Greece, and made her the bulwark 
of Hellenic independence, until the fatal battle of 
Chsetronea (338 B.C.), which established the Macedonian 
supremacy. Lycurgus, who stood for many years at 
the head of the financial administration of Athens, was 
most active in fortifying and building up the city. A 
new and magnificent arsenal in the Piraeus, called after 
its architect the arsenal of Philon, was erected under his 
direction, and in Athens he built a new stage structure 
and lined the seats of the Dionysiac theatre with marble. 
On the banks of the Ilissus he laid out the Stadium, 
used for the first time in 330 B.C.. for the games of 
the Panathenaic festival ; it had seats for no less than 
45,000 persons. He enlarged and beautified the gymna- 
sium known as the Lyceum, where Aristotle expounded 
his science and philosophy. During the subsequent 
Macedonian occupation, Demetrius of Phalerum gave 
the city a wise administration. Now Athens became 
the seat of schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the 
metropolis of polite learning. The long list of bene- 
factors of Athens during the Alexandrian period begins 
with Ptolemy Philadelphus (284 B.C.), who founded a 



ATHENS. 15 

gymnasium and library which bears his name. The 
kings of Pergamus, Attains and Eumenes, built mar- 
kets and halls and theatres, and the Syrian Antiochus 
Epiphanes (175 B.C.) resumed the building of the Olym- 
pieum, which for a long time had remained half com- 
pleted. With the destruction of Corinth in 146 B.C. by 
the Romans, and the dissolution of .the Achseau League 
(q.v.), Athens with the rest of Greece became a Roman 
province. Yet for a long time the conqueror Rome sat 
at the feet of the conquered Athens, to learn her art and 
letters, and to gain from her sages teachings of philoso- 
phy and rules of statesmanship. Of the buildings of 
this period should be named especially the Tower of the 
Winds, which served as a kind of public clock and ba- 
rometer, built by Andronicus Cyrrhestes, and the Gate 
of the Agora. The Emperor Hadrian, probably no less 
through a desire to gratify his vanity than from a love 
of Greek culture, gave Athens a fresh revival of art and 
a new prosperity. An entire quarter of the city, south- 
east of the Acropolis, was named after him, as is attested 
by an inscription which can still be read on the ' Gate 
of Hadrian.' He finished the great Temple of Zeus 
begun by Pisistratus, which was thus more than 600 
years in course of building. About the same time a 
wealthy Athenian, Herodes Atticus of Marathon, built, 
in honour of his wife Regilla, a magnificent theatre or 
odeum, the ruins of which rise conspicuously above all 
other remains of the ancient city at the foot of the 
Acropolis. But here is the turning-point. From this 
time onwards the history of Athens is only one of spo- 
liation and destruction, first by Romans, then by Goths, 
then by Christians, and last by Mussulmans. The 



16 ATHENS. 

Athenians had to pay dearly for espousing the cause of 
King Mithridates against the Romans. After a long 
siege, the Romans under Sulla took Athens and plun- 
dered it of many works of art. In 267 a.d. the city 
was captured by the Goths. In the next century Con- 
stantinople began to draw works of art from Athens for 
her adornment. The schools of philosophy, especially 
the Neoplatonic, still maintained their existence, and 
were the support of pagan religion. At last the Em- 
peror Justinian, in 529 a.d,, closed by edict the Athe- 
nian schools of philosophy, and the light of science and 
learning that had been shining for so many centuries, 
though but dimly at the last, was now wholly extin- 
guished. The temples were converted into churches, 
whereby they suffered many architectural changes. In 
1019 the Emperor Basilius II. held in the Parthenon, 
now called Panagia, or the church of the Madonna, a 
religious celebration in gratitude for his victory oyer the 
northern barbarians. In 1204, after the conquest of 
Constantinople, Boniface de Montferrat became king of 
Greece. Athens was ruled by a succession of Frankish 
dukes until 1456, when the city fell into the hands of 
the Turks, under whose blighting despotism, with a brief 
interruption of Venetian ascendency, it remained until 
the deliverance of Greece was effected in 1833 through 
the intervention of the great powers of Europe. 

(4) With the liberation of Greece from the yoke of 
Turkey begins the history of Modern Athens. Before 
the transfer of the capital from Nauplia by King Otho, 
who had been chosen to the throne of the new kingdom, 
Athens was a wretched village of a few hundred houses. 
Since that time it has enjoyed a prosperous growth. 



ATHENS. 17 

Modern Athens has been built chiefly on the eastern 
and northern sides of the Acropolis, while the ancient 
city lay chiefly on tlie southern and western sides, and 
in its public buildings and newer parts it reminds one 
of the better-built German cities. Its present popula- 
tion is about 85,000, that of the Piraeus being more than 
30,000. It has a gymnasium on the German model, a 
school for the higher education of girls, several })rivate 
schools of excellent character, a polytechnic school, and 
a university which numbers more than 50 professors in 
the various faculties, and about 1400 students. A rail- 
way connects Athens with the Piraeus, and tramways 
run to outlying villages. Except in the back streets 
and remote corners, one would hardly think of Athens 
as at all an oriental city. Its two chief business streets, 
'Hermes' and 'JEolus/ cross each other at right angles, 
and divide the city into four nearly equal parts. Of 
modern public buildings the most noteworthy are the 
University, the Academy, which is built almost wholly 
of marble and shows .with beautiful effect the jwlychro- 
niatic decorations of the ancient Doric style, the Exposi- 
tion Hall, and the Palace, externally an ugly square 
building, but containing some spacious and handsome 
salons. Among the most recent erections are a mag- 
nificent building for the national library, and a fine 
theatre. Both these structures, as well as the Academy 
and the Exposition Hall, are the gifts of wealthy Greeks, 
who reside mostly abroad, and take this way of showing 
their interest in the prosperity of their native country. 
Athens has become a centre of archseological interest and 
study. Aside from the monuments mentioned above, it 
has many remains of antiquity stored and exhibited in 



18 ATHENS. 

its three museums. At the eastern end of the Acropolis, 
the Arch geological Society of Athens has erected a low 
building in which are preserved the remains and frag- 
ments of ancient art that have been exhumed on the 
Acropolis. The most noteworthy of these are several 
slabs of the Parthenon frieze, a few reliefs of the beau- 
tiful balustrade of the Temple of Wingless Victory, 
fragments of the frieze of the Erechtheum, and the 
fourteen archaic statues of divinities or priestesses found 
in 1886 west of the Erechtheum. The museum con- 
tained in the Polytechnicum embraces the Mycense col- 
lection made by Dr Schliemann, a large number of fig- 
urines from Tanagra, Myrina, and other places, and a 
collection of vases illustrative of every period in the his- 
tory of vase-painting. The National Museum is espe- 
cially rich in archaic statues and in sepulchral steles and 
reliefs. The Greek Archaeological Society generously 
affords every facility to foreign students who are pur- 
suing archaeological studies, and is constantly expending 
considerable sums of money in carrying on excavations. 
At present the entire surface of the Acropolis is under- 
going excavation under its supervision. Interest in these 
researches has been greatly stimulated by the planting of 
foreign archaeological schools at Athens, of which there 
are four. The French school was established in 1846, 
and possesses a good library and a small but choice 
museum. The German Institute was opened in 1873, 
and has been very active in carrying on researches, the 
results of which are published in an annual volume en- 
titled Mittheilungen des Deutschen Archseologisohen Insti- 
tuts. The French school issues a similar publication 
called Bulletin de Correspondance HelUnique. Both 



ATHENS. 19 

these schools are supported by their respective govern- 
ments. The American school was founded in 1882, 
and is maintained by the co-operation of twelve of the 
leading colleges, and by the friends of classical studies 
in the United States. The British school was opened 
in 1886, and is under the patronage of the society for 
the promotion of Hellenic studies. As ancient Athens 
was for so many centuries the intellectual centre of the 
world, so the undecaying interest and charm that attaches 
to the remains of this ancient home of art and science, 
beautiful even in ruin and decay, attract more and more 
the student and the tourist to the ' violet-wreathed city 
of Athena.' — The principal Athenians are treated of in 
separate articles. See also Greece, Art, Sculpture ; 
and Dyer's Ancient Athens: its History, Topography, and 
Remains [luond. 1873); Bursiau, Geographie des Griech- 
enlands (1873), important for antiquities and art; Wach- 
smuth, Stadt Athen (vol. i. 1874); Burnouf, La Ville et 
PAeropole d'Athenes aux diverses epoques (Par. 1877); 
Curtius and Kaupert, Atlas von Athen (Berlin, 1878); 
Forbiger, GHechenland im Zeitalter des Perikles (3 vols. 
1882); and Milchhofer's, Athen (in Baumeister's Denk- 
maler des Klassischen Altertums, Munich, 1884). 



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